


Whatever Happened to Ruby Gillis

by illusive_delusions



Category: Anne with an E (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-25
Updated: 2018-07-25
Packaged: 2019-06-15 23:57:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15424485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illusive_delusions/pseuds/illusive_delusions
Summary: In which Ruby Gillis has a change of heart and Anne Shirley finds herself at a loss for words.





	Whatever Happened to Ruby Gillis

Something was amiss in Avonlea. All the school children, specifically the girls, felt it, although no one could quite place their finger on what it was. Some dynamic had experienced a subtle shift, some paradigm had been upturned, and everyone could sense it. 

 

Even Muriel Stacey caught a whiff of the change in recent weeks, feeling the difference in the air around her pupils, as though some long-held belief or tenant of their young lives had crumbled and fallen away. 

 

One grey autumn afternoon approximately a month after the unspoken and enigmatic  _ change _ had befallen Avonlea School, classes were proceeding as usual after lunch. The largest group of students was huddled together in the center of the room taking turns reading aloud from King Lear. Off to either side of the classroom, sitting at the few remaining desks in the schoolhouse, were Miss Stacy’s seven college-prep students. 

 

She had paired six them off with another student who excelled in a field the other struggled in, therefore Anne was helping Moody with literature and he was aiding her with geometry. Josie Pye was learning Latin with Charlie Sloan who was getting help in his spelling. Gilbert was teaching Ruby Gillis algebraic principles and Ruby was quizzing him in history. The seventh girl, Jane Andrews, was sitting with Ms. Stacy at the board going over basic calculus. Overall, the schoolhouse was full of focused, studious pupils. 

 

Well, as focused and studious as a room full of teenagers could be, at any rate. 

 

“Gilbert Blythe, I think if you say the words ‘commutative property’ to me one more time I’ll just have a brain aneurysm,” Ruby Gillis pronounced, shoving her book across the table towards the offending boy in disgust. 

 

“I, um,—”

 

“Ugh, I know I know it’s what we’re  _ supposed  _ to be doing, but I really won’t stand for another minute of it.”

 

“Sorry, Ruby, I—”

 

“Psst. Psst. Anne. Hey, Anne!” Ruby called across the aisle, paying no mind to her assigned study partner. 

 

Anne’s head shot up from her textbook to answer Ruby’s insistence. She glanced briefly towards Ms. Stacy who was still caught up with Jane. 

 

“What is it?” Anne asked. 

 

“Wanna trade?”

 

“What?”

 

“Trade study partners silly?”

 

Anne blinked in confusion, looking between Gilbert and Moody and then back to Ruby like her friend had just suggested they take a nosedive off a cliff together.

 

“What?!” she repeated, caught off guard by the request. 

 

“Yeah,” Ruby nodded excitedly.  “Yeah, I need more help with geometry than algebra and you’ll be okay no matter what. Please? Pretty please?” she pleaded, clasping her hands together underneath her chin. 

 

Anne blinked again, but before she had time to answer Ruby was already sweeping her books off of her desk and making her way to where Anne and Moody sat slightly dumbfounded. 

 

“Um… okay?” Anne said, slowly collecting her things to move across the room next to Gilbert. Looking back over shoulder, Anne could see that Ruby had wasted no time occupying her seat, and was now hanging on Moody Spurgeon Macpherson’s every word about Euclidean geometric principles. 

 

Anne slid into Ruby’s vacated seat, still studying the strange occurrence on the other side of the room. And she wasn’t the only one. Josie had elbowed Charlie in the ribs to quiet him so that she could examine the spectacle, and from the front of the class Diana had stopped paying attention to King Lear entirely in favor of the drama playing out before their eyes. 

 

“Did Ruby just…” Gilbert trailed off. 

 

Anne turned in her seat to face him, her confused expression a perfect mirror of his, and nodded dumbly. 

 

“Yeah, she did.”

 

Ruby Gillis has just voluntarily and without the slightest prompting ditched Gilbert Blythe in favor of  _ Moody _ . 

 

“I’m… I mean I’m not complaining,” Gilbert murmured. “I just never thought she would — I mean she used to force me to partner with her in everything. It’s just… kind of weird.”

 

Anne made eye contact with Diana across the room and the two silently agreed that they would need to have a talk with Ruby as soon as possible. Gilbert wasn’t being arrogant in his confusion, Ruby had been in love with him for  _ years _ , constantly jumping at the opportunity to be in his presence. And now? Was this some new ‘hard-to-get’ tactic?

* * *

 

The rest of the day passed in a puzzled blur for the students of Avonlea, as the girls desperately tried to figure out just what was going on with Ruby. 

 

As soon as Ms. Stacy dismissed her class, Anne and Diana went sprinting for the mud room, beat to their coats only by Josie and Tillie and Jane. The four girls waited outside the door to ambush Ruby the moment she left. 

 

“What was all  _ that _ ?!” cried Josie before Ruby had even had the chance to wrap her scarf fully around herself. 

 

“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ruby sniffed, sticking her nose in the air and huffing past her clique. 

 

The girls stood staring at each other for a half a second before springing into action after her. 

 

“The situation with Gilbert and Moody!” Tillie exclaimed, racing ahead of Ruby to try and make eye contact. 

 

“Yeah What was  _ up _ with that?” asked Jane imploringly. “We’ve been distracted all day with it!”

 

“You left Gilbert Blythe. On purpose. Ruby, are you feeling alright?” Diana asked. 

 

And on and on it went halfway home with the girls hurling their questions and Ruby steadfastly refusing to answer them with a knowing smirk on her lips. Finally, when they could take it no longer, Ruby broke. 

 

“I’m no longer interested in Gilbert that’s what.”

 

Silence descended over the group for a beat before everybody exploded into chatter at once. 

 

“What?!”

 

“What do you  _ mean _ ?!”

 

“Huh?!”

 

“Are you serious?!”

 

“What on earth?!”

 

Ruby delighted in her friend’s unadulterated shock. 

 

“Ruby,” began Jane again, “you’ve been in love with Gilbert since before I can even remember, how can you not be interested anymore?”

 

Anne hadn’t taken her eyes off Ruby since the pronouncement was made, and now the two girls made brief eye contact. 

 

“I’ve just moved on, that’s all.” Ruby said, adjusting her hat primly atop her head. “Do you remember when we hopped the freight?” She asked Diana and Anne. The two girls nodded in unison. “Well, that day Moody was just so nice to me and—”

 

“I’m sorry, you moved on from  _ Gilbert Blythe _ to  _ Moody _ ?!” Josie scoffed, looking at Ruby like she was scum from the bottom of her shoe. 

 

“Hmmph.”

 

“Don’t be mean Josie Pye,” Diana scolded, turning back to Ruby. “Go on.”

 

“Well he was just really really nice to me, and after he got back he started walking me home and we just have a whole bunch in common, that’s all. Besides we all know that Gilbert likes Ann— ahem.  _ Another _ girl.”

 

Her pronouncement fell on the ground at the girl’s feet and they all pondered it in silence. 

 

“Well,” Tillie spoke up first, “I’m really happy for you Ruby.”

 

Ruby beamed up at Tilly and looked around at her little group, steadfastly ignoring the prissy look on Josie’s face. Then Ruby’s gaze returned to Anne. 

 

“Anne?” she ventured meekly. 

 

“Hmm? What? Oh, yes, I’m happy for you too, Ruby.”

 

Ruby took a step forward and embraced Anne firmly. 

 

“Thank you Anne.”

 

“For… for what?”

 

“You’ve been a very good friend these past few years. About me and Gil, I mean.”

 

“Oh. Um. Yeah. I mean, I don’t know what you’re talking abou—”

 

Ruby placed her hand over Anne’s mouth and gave her friend a knowing look. 

 

“You  _ know _ what I mean.”

 

Anne broke Ruby’s gaze and stared down at her shoes, scuffing her toes in the dirt and doing her level best to ignore the gazes of the girls around her.

 

“You can play dumb all you want Anne but I just wanted to let you know that you’re free to do what you want. I won’t be upset. You held back for me and now you don’t have to anymore.”

 

Anne snapped her head back up towards Ruby, her face flushing a bright, hot scarlett. Before she had a chance to deny anything though, Ruby linked her arms through Jane and Tillie’s, blew Anne and Diana a kiss, and flounced off in the direction of her home. Josie rolled her eyes to the sky and turned in her heel, following the other girls away into the woods, leaving only the two bosom friends standing on the path alone.

 

“Don’t say anything Diana, just don’t say a word!”

 

Diana’s smile was so radiant in that moment that it could have lit up all of Avonlea. 

 

“Wouldn’t dream of it Anne!”

**Author's Note:**

> I just wanted to continue following my shirbert shipper heart while still making my dear angel Ruby happy DON’T JUDGE ME TOO HARSHLY PLEASE


End file.
